Do you use them in your cell starters? Do you have a favorite recipe for your cell starters?

05-11-2013, 08:18 PM

Lauri

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

my cane sugar syrup recipe, besides the water and sugar is about a cup of cider vinegar per 5 gallon bucket and a sprinkle of electrolytes.

My patty recipe is about 6# mann lakes bee pro, 6# brewers yeast, 25#sugar, 1 quart cider vinegar,2- 3 quarts cold water, electrolytes with vitamins and some essential oils or pro health when I have them.
I have to say, the bees are not interested in syrup or patties with natural sources coming in, but some my queen cells so far are not quite the quality I had last year when they took up my protein patty mix. Thank goodness for the incubator. So easy to cull as soon as they hatch and not waste a mating nuc-then evaluate.

05-11-2013, 09:00 PM

WBVC

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

I am new and would like to know what the things that look like stacked doormats are.

05-11-2013, 09:03 PM

Lauri

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

What photo are you refering to? I'm not seeing anything that looks like that

05-11-2013, 10:14 PM

Adam Foster Collins

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lauri

What photo are you refering to? I'm not seeing anything that looks like that

Fourth picture in your original post, on the left. Looks like a stack of cut carpeting or something to the left of the hives on the stand...

05-11-2013, 11:10 PM

Sir_Gregory

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Foster Collins

Fourth picture in your original post, on the left. Looks like a stack of cut carpeting or something to the left of the hives on the stand...

Thoughs are bottems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtndewluvr

Tahoma...reminds me of a truck. Sounds like a fun game...Name My Queen...and a free daughter to the winner!!!

What WBVC is asking about is your archery target directly behind your row of hives.

05-12-2013, 09:13 AM

Lauri

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Ahhhh. Now I get you. Yes, that is an archery target made of old carpet strips. They glue and compress them, then band them. Stops any arrow and you can pull them out with two fingers. We also use cedar bales and bags filled with shrink wrap plastic for targets.
Notice the swarm trap on top the target? :)

05-12-2013, 09:51 AM

WBVC

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

and here I thought it was some fancy item for bee keeping:)

05-12-2013, 09:59 AM

WBVC

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

How does one tell if a Queen cell is good and for that matter if a "hatched" queen is not good and should be culled (I suspect = killed)?

I am far to new to try this sort of thing of now but am very interested in learning so I may be apply what I have learned as time goes on. The incubator and racks of queen cells in those cage looked a great way to manage queen rearing. As someone with limiting arthritis the nuc boxes on the fence looked very practical...and attractively appealing as well.

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics and explanations....much appreciated.

05-12-2013, 11:08 AM

Lauri

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by WBVC

How does one tell if a Queen cell is good and for that matter if a "hatched" queen is not good and should be culled (I suspect = killed)?

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics and explanations....much appreciated.

They need to be whoppers at birth for a start:)..no shrimps allowed. And I have had some culls this first few batches. Just not fed well enough. I want to see royal jelly packed into the top of the cell when I place them. You should see it right through the cell cup at the top.
No abundance of jelly, I don't even let it hatch.
Now a small capped cell is OK as long as there is royal jelly in it. I've gotten some whopper virgins out of dinky cells.
I'd rather have a small cell with royal jelly than a big cell that was dry on top.

You are very welcome. Ideas are always good to share. That's why Beesource is amazing.

05-12-2013, 01:45 PM

beepro

1 Attachment(s)

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lauri

I want to see royal jelly packed into the top of the cell when I place them. You should see it right through the cell cup at the top.

Lauri, I took some pictures of the royal jelly inside the plastic cell. But not sure if this is enough to make some good queens.

Is this what you mean by to the cup at the top?

05-12-2013, 01:56 PM

Lauri

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Looks great!

05-12-2013, 03:39 PM

BeeGhost

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Lauri,

I have a swarm queen I picked up a month ago that is very dark like the queen you have in that picture and that swarm has almost two deeps drawn out. She is an absolute laying machine. Before the builders even had a 8" x 6" leaf drawn in the upper deep she had already laid in it and moved back down!! I am going to graft off her on my next round.

I like your pictures!!

05-12-2013, 03:54 PM

Joseph Clemens

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lauri

. . . I want to see royal jelly packed into the top of the cell when I place them. You should see it right through the cell cup at the top.
No abundance of jelly, I don't even let it hatch.
Now a small capped cell is OK as long as there is royal jelly in it. I've gotten some whopper virgins out of dinky cells.
I'd rather have a small cell with royal jelly than a big cell that was dry on top. . .

That's all very well when you're in an environment with naturally high relative humidity. But here in the desert Southwest, once our warmer weather arrives, though almost all cells have an abundance of royal jelly before they're capped, and even with my augmenting the humidity level in my cell builder area with a high pressure fogging system, that surplus royal jelly, regularly dries out before the queens emerge. But, as you say, it does seem to be a good indicator for the cells to have an abundance of royal jelly remaining after they're capped.

05-13-2013, 09:02 AM

kilocharlie

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

:) I knew that was an archery target before I read the post! Oops! I'm tipping my cards. I like excelsior bales for crossbow practice, but fletching glue for queen discs? That's a great idea. (sorry about off-topic)

Glad you are having so much success in such a beautiful environment. Are the frames in your "1/2 Nucs" oriented cross-wise like mating nucs, or long-wise like most beehives? Your bees might come up a bit faster if you used full, 5-frame deep nucleus colonies with more bees. I add 3 or 4 scoops (32 oz drink cups) and 3 frames for open mating, and add 2 more frames right after the queen's laying pattern proves out good. They really take off after they get to 5 frames. They are in a 10-frame box in less than a month if the sage blooms well (last year they had to wait for buckwheat, as the sage didn't happen). The best colonies fill their second box during sumac bloom 6 weeks later, if all goes well.

Beeghost - make a few extra grafts off her for me :) I suspect she came from the nuclear lab?

05-13-2013, 10:43 AM

WBVC

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

I have a question about the 1/2 length frames in the divided deep nucs. Is that set up used solely for the purpose of creating queens or what? If the frames don't fit into a regular sized deep box how does one transition the nuc to a regular deep?
I am certain I have just highlighted my lack of knowledge but asking is how I will learn.

Thank you everyone for your ongoing patience and explanations.

Having never be associated with any form of archery that is alos a foreign world to me:)

05-13-2013, 11:14 AM

kilocharlie

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

WBVC-
5-frame nucleus colonies ("nucs") are the traditional unit for working small, "increaser colonies" into full-strength, 10-frame colonies. They work pretty good like that.

Half- and 1/3- size nucs (usually called "mini-mating nucs" or "Baby nucs") are usually for mating a virgin queen with about 1,500 bees to care and provide for her - it is just a trick that queen breeders use to make LOTS of queens without a lot of bees and honeycomb. The mini- and baby nucs often have mini feeding frames for sugar water in them, too. It usually works, but there can be some mischief, like swarming, doubling up, absconding, freezing to death in late cold fronts, other mishaps.

Virgin queens are usually put in them as sealed queen cells, before they have hatched. They hatch in a few days, grow up for about a week, then go out on their orienting and mating flights (some go more than once), come home for 2 or 3 days, then begin to lay eggs. Breeders leave them in these mini-mating nucs or baby nucs for about 2 to 3 weeks, then check their egg-laying pattern to see if it is profuse and solid. They are then either sold with package bees, given to 5-frame nucleus colonies to survive over winter and sell the next spring, used for re-queening, or kept to populate new colonies for their own purposes.

Of course, there are a LOT of variations on these basic guidelines, this is just a "middle-of-the-road" way of doing it. I doubt any two beekeepers do it alike, let alone queen breeders! My own preference is to cut vertical slots in my 10-frame boxes and add 1/4" hive partitions to make three 3-frame compartments for open-mating. This seems to work out pretty well - I get fair numbers of queens, can use any frame that serves the purpose, and I can add way more than 1,500 bees (a 32 oz drink cup of bees) -- I use 3 or 4 such "scoops", and this allows me to leave them in there for up to a month. They also build up quicker, and are ready to go to 5 frame nuc arrangement sooner than mini nucs do.

(BIG FAT HINT- for your own uses, try the over-wintered nucleus approach - it usually builds up in population MUCH better than package bees the next year!) The baby nucs would take all year to build up if left by themselves (and they still might not even make it through winter)- it is better to add some frames of brood and enough bees to cover the frames - no extra queens, please - and put them into a 4-frame nuc, a 5-frame nuc, or even an 8-frame box and let them increase through the rest of the spring/summer/early fall. Box size-to-bee population is an issue - the bees need to keep a certain amount of volume warm by shivering, and excess volume costs them more honey.

Good idea to ask - I hope this helps. Oh, and archery is very complicated - you put the arrrow point in front, the nock goes on the string, you pull the string back, then you let it go at someone you don't like...hee hee hee maybe you should ask Lauri.;)

05-13-2013, 01:54 PM

WBVC

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

"three 3-frame compartments for open-mating"

If you have a box physically divided into 3 compartments each with an opening, have scooped in random bees and they have a queen...do they go out and come back to the opening of their little condo section? Do they not fly back to their original free standing home hive leaving the nuc condo a bit lean on bees?

Once the queen is sold and gone do you then take the condo frames and mix them with larger hive? Again how do you keep the bees with hive you have chosen for them?

I do not have a 3km space to work with so can't move them far away and back again.

05-13-2013, 02:10 PM

beepro

Re: favorite queen for grafting so far

What I normally do is to put 2 dividers into the medium hive to separate it into 3 sections. Each
section has 2-3 frame of bees. If you keep the capped broods and young nurse bees either
brush them in or from the same hive then they will not drift back to the original hive. I don't even
move the hive box at all. The same location is fine. After that it is requeen time and waiting for
her mating flight.